32 BACK --STAGE VISITORS 11- THé PR.OCéS 5 SéR. VéR. W HEN Mr. W ooski sen t his name in it conveyed nothing to me at all. It was my first experience of his type of visi- tor. I had, up to that moment, been singularly free from divorce, legal en- tanglements, and had always paid my debts just in time. However, at last, like many a better man, I was caught. Mind you, I should have been warned, I should have realized it would come to this inevitably. For weeks past a series of increasingly threatening letters had reached me. The first, something in this wise: "Dear Sir: "For months past, the Dumble Pub- lishing Company, with a patience that strikes us as little short of amazing, has been appealing to your better na- ture to pay your just debt to them of $3.80. When you incurred the debt the Dumble Publishing Company picked you out especially as a man of honor whom they could trust In a transaction of this sort. ('But you hilVe failed them, and they have, at last, in desperation, ap- pealed to us. Now we are loath to believe that you are deliberately avoid- ing the payment of this debt, and we feel there must be some explanation for your conduct. Won't you please write to us, and frankly tell us the position? Maybe we can help you. But you must attend to this matter at once. Yours respectfully, The Triumph Collection Agency." Now you would have thought that I might have been deeply moved by this letter, which exhibited an almost heart-breaking faith in my honesty and integrity. You would have thought that I might have sent the $3.80, even if I had had to sell my last stick of furniture and my Whippet to do so. But I did nothing of the kind. I don't know what possessed me, but, to my undying shame, I ignored that gentle letter. Then came another, not so gentle: U Dear Sir: "Weare simply at a loss to com- prehend your silence in the matter of . +'. " ,; ... " . .' . <';t . . . , ., . ......;... '" '" -... . . 5:. . :: : \ I . wi) the $3.80 owing to the Dumble Pub- lishing Co. We have appealed to your honor, your sense of morality and ethics, and your instincts of common fairness and decency. \tVe understand, too, that the Dumble Publishing Co. has even offered you a beauti fully bound volume of 'Extracts from Ingersoll,' FREE, only if you pay this just obligation. "You have ignored every kindness shown you. You have one more chance to prove if you have a spark of de- cency left. Our business is the collec- tion of debts, and when folks like you are blind to all reason, we have means of bringing them to their senses. Respectfully, Triumph Collection A.gency." Now, I must admit that this letter rather terrified me. That awful itali- cized last line, and the sardonic "Re- spectfully." But I did nothing about it. A dreadful lethargy seemed to have seized me concerning the whole mat- ter, and I just drifted- Then the last letter: "Sir: "W e have tried to save you time, money, and exposure. "\\T e have done our best to help you. But the time of reckon- ing is now at hand. Unless the $3.80 owing the Dumble Publishing Co. reaches us be- f ore the close of business Monday, you must answer for the consequences. We shall not write again. Triumph Collection Agency. Xy /ZK 4285367B32-0 " Not even the air of appal- ling finality about this moved me to action. Not even the cryptic hieroglyphics at the end, which almost savored of a prison number, urged me to send that $3.80 by hook or by crook. I just waited, like a drowning man, for the end. It soon came. I WAS sitting in my dress- ing-room after the per- f ormance, negligently dressed in a beautiful dressing gown NOVeMDEI\ ", 1 17 covered with grease-paint marks, and smoking a cigarette with a boy friend, while my dresser looked on a little bored, as it was late, when they sent in Mr. Wooski's name. As I said before, it meant nothing to me, but it sounded interesting, and God knows the actor's life is infinitely boring, so I said brisk- ly, "Show Mr. Wooski in." Of course that's where I was a fool. Mr. W ooski proved to be a fat, energetic gentleman with a gleaming cye. He breezed in rapidly and with- out a word pressed a paper into my hand. A little bewildered, I naturally took it. And Mr. W ooski's eye gleamed more than ever. For, at that moment, I was "served." It was a summons. I was told to appear in court within five days to answer to the com- plaint of the Dumble Publishing Company in the matter of $3.80. I gazed at the document. "Why," I exclaimed brightly, "it's a summons." "You said it," remarked Mr. W 00- ski with a wink at my boy friend. "A summons," I repeated, not so brightly. "Sure. Don't let it worry ya," re- assured Mr. W ooski. "It don't mean a doggone thing." "Really," said I, cheering up. "Not a thing," said my visitor with a downward motion of the palm of his hand, "unless ya ignore it. If ya do, it's contempt 0' court. Dey'll come in and get ya right offa de stage-an' .. . : ..,' .r '. /'J ' ..:;.,: " . \. ....... , . . . . . : , ' " . , ' . , .. , " j:.; -a , ) ":'f,,;o , .,'. à ' ,':-f; ""' ::; " ,'. .. ' ..... , k;, .t: \. .: . i 1 ;:.'1 1, ..... t . ç' ';.iÞ.1 , \ . ..,,; .{( + : \: \. "Anything at all, mister. I want to go home to momma."